An Octolens alternative you top up instead of subscribing to.
Octolens covers a lot of platforms and prices for teams that need them. If your brand is talked about mostly on X, Reddit, LinkedIn and Hacker News, Overhear watches those for a few dollars a month per keyword, with no plan to commit to.
Octolens vs Overhear
| Octolens | Overhear | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Pro $159 a month, Scale $499 a month, billed yearly | Prepaid credits from $10, no subscription; 1,000 free to start |
| Keywords | 10 on Pro, 40 on Scale, then $5 to $10 a month each | No keyword cap; each search costs credits |
| Sources | Reddit, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Hacker News, Bluesky, GitHub, TikTok, DEV, Stack Overflow, reviews; news and web on Scale | X, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, Hacker News and web search results |
| How often | Hourly on Pro, real time on Scale | Hourly, every 6 hours, daily or off, per keyword and per source |
| Mention limits | 15,000 a month on Pro, then billed per mention | None; you pay per search, not per mention found |
| Filtering | AI relevance score, tags and sentiment | Claude sorts every post (question, complaint, bug, praise, misinformation, competitor) and learns from your Related and Not related clicks |
| Delivery | Email, Slack, webhooks, API and MCP | Email alerts for posts that need action, a daily digest, signed webhooks and an MCP server |
| Replies | Not listed | Claude drafts a reply with a tracked link; you post it |
Octolens column from its website, checked October 2026.
What it costs
One brand keyword at the default pace (X and Reddit hourly, LinkedIn every 6 hours, the rest daily): about 2640 credits a month, $4.40 at the $10 pack rate.
Prepaid credits, no subscription, no keyword cap. Credits never expire and a failed search costs nothing.
When to stay on Octolens
- You need Bluesky, GitHub, TikTok, Stack Overflow or app store reviews. Overhear does not search them.
- You need real-time alerts. Overhear's fastest pace is hourly.
- You want alerts in Slack without wiring a webhook yourself.
- You track dozens of keywords on every source hourly; at that volume a flat plan can cost less than credits.
Questions
How much cheaper is Overhear than Octolens?
It depends on how many keywords and how often. One brand keyword at the default pace costs a few dollars a month; Octolens Pro is $159 a month billed yearly for ten.
Is there a free trial?
Every new workspace gets 1,000 credits once, with no card. After that you buy prepaid credits from $10, and they never expire.
Does Overhear search GitHub or Bluesky?
No. It searches X, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, Hacker News and the web.
Can I cap what I spend?
Yes, by design: you can only spend the credits you bought. At zero, scans pause until you top up.
See how it works per source: Reddit monitoring and X monitoring.
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